“I did not mean in that way,” she answered. She had risen, and, looking at the clock, seemed to show him that their time was over. “But we won’t discuss life and death now,” she said.
“You mean that it’s late and that I must go?” he smiled.
“Perhaps I mean only that I don’t want to discuss,” she smiled back. “Though--yes, indeed, it is late; almost seven. I have a great many things to do this evening, so that I must rest before dinner, and let you go.”
“Whenever you will. Thank you for being so kind to-day.”
The shaded light cast soft upward shadows on her face, revealing sweet oddities of expression. In their shadow he could not fathom her eyes; but a tenderness, peaceful, benignant, even a recovered gaiety, hovered on her brow, her upper lip, her cheeks. It was like a reflection of sunlight in a deep pool, this dim smiling of gratitude and gaiety.
He had a queer feeling, and a profounder one than in their former moment when she had repudiated his helpless emotion, that she spared him, that she restrained some force that might break upon this fraternal nearness. For an instant he wondered if he wanted to be spared, and with the wonder was once more the wrench at leaving her there, alone, in her fire-lit room. But it was her strength that carried them over all these dubious undercurrents, and he so relied on it that, holding her hand in good-by, he said, “I will come soon. I like it here.”
“And you are coming to Kirklands this summer. Uncle expects it. You mustn’t disappoint him, and me. I shall be there for a month.”
“Jim Grainger will be there, too. You remember Jim. You can fight with him from morning till night, but you and I will fight about nothing, absolutely nothing, Gavan. We will--_glisser_. We will talk about Goya! We will be perfectly comfortable.”
He really believed that they might be, so happily convincing was her tone.
“Grainger is a great chum of yours, isn’t he?” he asked.
“You remember, he and his brother were old playmates; Clarence has turned out a poor creature; he’s a nobody in the church. I’m very fond of Jim. And I admire him tremendously. He is the conquering type, you know--the type that tries for the high grapes.”
“You won’t set him at me, to mangle me for your recreation?”